


Resurrection

by conceptofzero



Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-22
Updated: 2015-09-22
Packaged: 2018-04-22 20:47:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4850027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/conceptofzero/pseuds/conceptofzero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The auras appear while she’s out the Osprey substation, the all-too familiar haze swimming around the building. Courier’s just looking for a goddamn lunchbox so she can put together another courier’s lunch but she’s barely out in the sun before she realizes that a migraine is coming on and she is truly fucked.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Resurrection

The auras appear while she’s out the Osprey substation, the all-too familiar haze swimming around the building. Courier’s just looking for a goddamn lunchbox so she can put together another courier’s lunch but she’s barely out in the sun before she realizes that a migraine is coming on and she is truly fucked. 

Courier knows from experience that stimpacks don’t work and that she’s right out of med-x and there’s no goddamn point in using anything else except maybe a Psycho to try hold it off. That’s what she goes with, injecting herself as she gets moving quick as she can back to the only safe place in this godforsaken canyon. The only downside to Psycho is while it might hold the migraine at bay for a little while, it fucks up her ability to think straight, and it makes the White Legs even more tempting targets than usual. More than once, she has to drag herself away from a fight, clinging to the reminder that she’ll be an easy target once the headache really kicks in. 

Doc warned her about a lot of things, but he hadn’t been able to prepare her for this kind of pain. Nothing had. The pain starts on the left hand side, the throbbing small at first but quickly ramping up with each step she takes. Courier knows all the movement makes it worse but she’s got to find a safe place in this backcountry. There’s no companion to watch her back this time, just her and her guns and some allies that might as well be on the other side of the world. 

The light’s so bright and she keeps her eyes as down as she can. There’s a ranger’s station on the way there and she stops, digging through it in the hopes she can find a med-x. She doesn’t, but she does find a pair of shades, slapping those on her face. They can’t stop the light entirely but they help her keep moving, keep trudging forward until she sees the river leading straight into the Sorrow’s camp. 

Courier’s staggering like a drunk by the time she wades into the waters, barely avoiding the bear traps. One of the Sorrows spots her and she tries hard to talk to them, her words taking on a mumbling, slurred quality. “Get me somewhere dark and s-safe. Get me med-x. It’s a migraine.” 

“Lean on me,” the Sorrow offers her a shoulder and Courier takes it, letting him guide her out of the water, and out of the sun. The cave is dark and she groans in relief. It’s not over, and she knows it’s going to be a big one because the steady pounding is building. He talks to someone else even as he guides her further inside, and there’s someone else on Courier’s other side who takes one of her arms, helping her along. “Someone tell Joshua that the Courier is hurting. She wants something for the pain.” 

“Med-x,” She insists on, because nothing else works. They lead her to a cool, dry spot and lie her down on a bedroll. The ground’s so hard under her and she takes some comfort in it, turning to lie with her stomach flat against it. They try to talk to her but it’s too late. Her words are clumsy and slurring hard, and each syllable makes her skull throb even harder, like it’ll split in too. “I. N-need quiet. Stop talking. No light, n-. No sound.” 

There are still people there and they’re trying to be quiet as they speak to each other but it’s not enough. Someone brings her a cool cloth to press against her forehead. It takes everything she has to grip it and pull it over her eyes, to block out the torchlight. There’s more footsteps and then a familiar voice - Joshua. The Sorrow who found her in the shallows relates things to him. “She can’t stand sound or light. She walks like she’s drunk and keeps asking for meddex.” 

Courier pulls tighter around herself, hating how vulnerable she is around these people. They’re her allies but they aren’t her friends or companions and right now, she’s put her life in their hands. Joshua says something so soft she can’t hear the words, just the low rumble of his voice, and there’s a flurry of movement. 

More wet cloths are brought and laid over her head and neck. Someone kneels beside her and she finally feels the familiar pinch of a needle in her arm. There are no words from whoever injected her - just the touch of their hand over the injection site as they rub it. 

It’s a bad migraine. It might even be the worst she’s ever had. There have been others before of course, enough that she’s learned what to do the hard way. The first one she ever had hit her in Novac, and she’s still thankful she rented that hotel room because she’s not sure what she would have done if it hit her out in the wastes. Probably died, honestly. That first time, she had no idea what caused it or what to do about it. For two days, she had lay in the bathroom on the cold, dirty tiles, only getting up to drink from the taps, or to throw up in the toilet. The smell of stale vomit had clung to her when she finally left that hotel room, feeling baffled by how sick she had been. It had seemed like a mystery illness, a sickness come and gone quickly, until it hit her again two weeks later. By then, she had Boone and ED-E, and they had found her shelter in a cleared out cave, watching over her until it passed. 

Now she knows the signs and she’s got a grasp on what triggers them, but they still catch her off-guard. The worst part is that Courier has no idea if she always had them, or if this is one last nasty present from Benny to carry with her to the end of her days, along with the scar on her forehead and the blank space in her memories that she knows will never be filled. 

Time doesn’t pass like it should when she’s got a migraine. It turns into a rubber band, stretching out thin or snapping back when she least expects it, the long lingering minutes turning very quickly into hours when she wakes from a sickening half-sleep. There’s no telling if she’s been here for hours or just a few minutes. The pain is the worst part of it. It throbs on and on and on, battering her mind and her body. Sometimes, she wants to take a corkscrew and stab it in her skull, grind it down and crack it open, just to give the pain somewhere to go and to escape instead of echoing in her skull until she can’t think at all. 

The only sure way to tell when time has passed is when she feels the cool rags replaced, the now dry cloth taken away and cold wet cloth pressed over her skin. Someone is with her, and she doesn’t know their name or their face, but they’re with her. They keep changing her bandages and they give her med-x every so often, and now and then, she feels their hand rest on her shoulder or her side, not grasping or squeezing, but just resting there softly, helping keep her grounded. Now and then, the same hands press a wet cloth against her mouth, encouraging her to drink from it. It’s hard to keep anything down, but she tries all the same, sucking gently on the cloth until her mouth isn’t parched and cracked anymore. It doesn’t always stay down, but then the hands are there with a basin for her and when her body’s finished spasming, the basin’s taken away from her and the hands clean her mouth and give her water to rinse with. 

The pain ebbs and flows, coming on hard and then trickling down until she can think again. When it’s at an ebb, she manages to speak, putting words together. “Time?” 

The soft hands press a wet cloth against her mouth. Joshua Graham speaks to her, his voice softer than she could have imagined possible. “It’s late. You’ve been here for six hours.” 

Six hours… it feels like it’s been longer, and at the same time, like she just lay down fifteen minutes ago. Courier sucks at the wet cloth, feeling water trickle in and down her throat. When Joshua removes it, she tries to speak again. “You’re. Tired.” 

He doesn’t respond immediately. She hears the slosh of water as he dabs the cloth in a bowl of it. Joshua presses the rag to her lips again, doing so a dozen more times, until finally she shakes her head slightly when he takes the rag away. That’s enough - any more and she’ll throw it up and waste all this effort. He sets the rag and the bowl away, and then he takes her hand in his. The bandages around his palm and fingers are soft and warm. 

“I don’t sleep much.” He says to her. She can hear him stopping to consider every sentence, pairing it down to be short and to the point. He must understand how much every word hurts to hear, even when she wants to hear them. “When it’s time, I’ll have another take my place.” 

Her fingers curl a little around his, though she’s careful not to squeeze hard. He knows pain better than she does. The migraines come hard and fast, but they leave. Joshua said to her that he burned all the time. Even now, his body must be in pain. But he’s sitting with her anyway. 

“Try to sleep.” Joshua keeps his hand in hers, even though it takes her a long time to pass back into that sickly half-sleep. 

For a while, she lies here and remembers things she doesn’t know. Or maybe she just hallucinates based on what she imagines she was before. The Courier doesn’t know, and she never speaks about anything she sees during these periods. They’ve happened before at the Lucky 38 and again when she was forced to hide in the tour portion of the REPCONN headquarters, listening to the droning exhibits intrude in on her mind now and then as she tried to stay safe and out of sight. The things she sees never overlap. Once, she dreamed she had a baby in her arms, but anytime she tried to say its name, she was interrupted by a lizard screaming outside. Another time, she dreamed she was on the edge of a vast river, so wide she couldn’t see the other side, and she was waiting there for a ship to come and take her away, to where? To where? In her hallucinations, she’s walking in poisonous rain, a bag of parcels on her back and a thick oil covered coat over her to keep the rain from leaking in and burning her, and in these strange half-moments, she remembers the lights of a city - not Vegas, but some other city as big and as sprawling, a place without walls around it. Except, she’s never sure if any of this is real, or if it’s her mind putting together faux-memories based on postcards and assumptions she’s made about her history. 

Joshua’s voice cuts through a hazy recollection of the tour in the solar system room, his hand squeezing hers until she drifts out of the too-chipper voice rattling on facts in her head. “Courier, will you need more med-x?”

“Let me. See.” She says and carefully lifts a hand to her face. When she pushes the cloth off her eyes, she opens them gently and looks. The cave is still very dark, but it’s never completely black in here. Joshua is a dim outline, though if he wasn’t covered in bandages, she wouldn’t be able to see him at all. It doesn’t feel good to move or open her eyes, but the headache’s started to recede, and the auras are all gone. “No more med-x. It… it’ll be. Another few hours.” 

“Good.” His voice is firm and she takes comfort in it, just as she took comfort in his hand and in the solid, unchanging state of the rock beneath her. Joshua goes quiet again, and with the throbbing having let up, she wants to hear his voice. 

“Tell me about new canaan.” Courier asks. He told her a little about the burned city and its strange religion, but not much. She wonders if she ever visited New Canaan before Benny shot her in the head and ripped away her memories. Probably not if she doesn’t remember their religion. Now it’s a place she’ll never go. 

Joshua is quiet for a long time, long enough she she suspects that she’s asked him the wrong thing. The loss is fresh and she’s seen the rage that burns in him. Maybe he’d rather not remember it yet. But when she’s about to ask for another thing, he speaks. No, not speaks, he _sings_. 

“By the waters, the waters of Babylon. We lay down and wept, and wept, for thee Zion.” His voice is uneven and gravely, but the words flow through him like water over a river bed. Joshua’s hand holds hers tight, tighter she she would have expected. The cave is big and wide, and his voice has a slight echo in it, and though her head throbs slightly, it isn’t enough to make the waning migraine any worse. “We remember thee, remember thee, remember thee Zion.” 

Her mouth moves with his, tracing the words. By the waters, the waters of Babylon. We lay down and wept, and wept, for thee Zion. We remember thee, remember thee, remember thee Zion. The verse repeats and repeats and his voice is a low hum. Beneath the bandages, she can feel the scars on his skin. It must hurt for him to hold her hand like this, to squeeze it, but he does it all the same. She can’t understand what it must have been like for him to burn, but she knows what it is to be reborn. He burned and she was buried and they’re both the dead come back to life. There’s a word for that, but she doesn’t know it. He would. Joshua would. 

When she finally feels able to sit up and drink water, he helps her get her back against the cave wall and presses a canteen into her hands. The water is cool and good, and she’s sure to pace herself, not wanting to spend another few hours here because she got greedy and then threw it all up. He sits beside her, careful not to press his back or body against anything he doesn’t need to. Courier supposes she should count her lucky stars - she has migraines sure, but she can still be touched by people and things without being in pain. 

It must hurt, but Joshua doesn’t react. Maybe he’s just gotten used to it. Maybe it’s just become normal, like the way the blank spots in her mind have become normal. 

They sit in silence. Courier appreciates it. While she enjoys talking to Joshua, she needs the quiet. It’s nice to have the comfort of his presence without the endless questions her companions sometimes have. She knows they mean well, knows they’re just trying to make sure she’s fine, but after the indignity of spending hours at the mercy of other people’s kindness, she just wants to have control over something. Silence is one of those things. Courier feels certain that Joshua must feel the same sometimes. He’s given her what she needs without fussing, trusted her judgement in what she needs without trying to force his own advice on her, and he’s stayed with her even though he could have left at any time and turned this duty over to some of the Sorrows. 

It seems he’s finally tired as well. She can see his shoulders starting to slump and he holds himself as if he’s expecting to fall asleep at any moment, positioned so he won’t fall over. Courier moves closer to him and she carefully touches her thigh to his. “You should sleep. I’m fine now. I just need another few hours.” 

Joshua takes this in with a soft sound, nodding after a moment. Courier expects him to get up, but he doesn’t. Instead, he moves to be nearer to her, his back against the same wall, his leg resting against hers. “Wake me when you go to leave.” 

“Sure.” Courier watches as he closes his eyes and lets his head fall forward, chin resting on the vest he wears. Sleeping must be profoundly painful for him. No wonder he avoids it. But when he sleeps, he sleeps like the dead, silent and still as he sits beside her. She only knows for certain he’s alive when she holds a few fingers beneath his mouth, feeling his warm breath wash over them. 

Her own rest is never so quiet. The companions don’t talk about it much, but they let it slip that Courier is restless and mumbles as she sleeps. They say nothing she says makes any sense. She has to trust that that’s the truth. It must be nice to know that your sleep is silent and that you won’t slip and let anything out. Joshua doesn’t stir even once during the two hours that the Courier sits with him, though if she looks close, she can see that his eyes dart under his eyelids as he dreams. Whatever’s in his dreams, it can’t be pleasant. Or maybe it is, maybe that’s part of the reason he hates to dream. Who would want to go from good dreams and come back to a reality where they’re alone? 

The throb fades as she drinks her water and stays in the dark with Joshua. It’s only as she hears the rise of voices from the other caves that she knows it’s time to go. There’s work to be done and White Legs crawling over the valley that need to be dealt with. She settles a hand on Joshua’s shoulder, giving him a light squeeze. It’s enough to wake him, his eyes forcing themselves open like a rusted shutter. 

“It’s time. I’ll be headed out again.” She tells him. They stand, both a little unsteady on their feet, walking side by side towards the distant fire lights in the joining cave. “Call me if you need me.” 

“Of course. We still have work to do. And Daniel will be needing your help as well. There’s much work and little time left.” He stops with her by the mouth of the cave. Courier can feel the quiet intimacy they shared starting to stretch thin and fade. She wants to take his hand again, to hold it once more. But she knows better than to do that.

Joshua nods to her. She nods to him. They go their separate ways. 

The sun outside is bright and bold. Courier makes sure to put the sunglasses on, shading herself from the worst of it. There’s plenty of work to be done, but as she ventures out, she adds one more item to her list. When this is over, she’s going to ask Joshua to come with her for a little while. 

After all, when she lays waste to the Fort, it seems only right that the Burned Man be there to witness.


End file.
